The making of Wreckers 4: The ends of the land

Tuesday 6 March

We’re in Scotland for our recce of the Orkneys and Hebrides. It’s been a nightmare to sort out from a logistical point of view. The ferry timetables are a law unto themselves and with a winter timetable in place, there are even fewer ferries running at even more erratic times than normal.

We don’t seem to be able to get from A to B without a detour to C, and 24 hours wait in between.

Creative Commons Image Asterion under CC-BY-SA licence
John O'Groats

Our first night is spent in John O’Groats, a strange kind of frontier town. No-one else is staying in our motel and the locals eye us suspiciously.

When I tell one of them that we are on the hunt for wreckers, he says: “Nothing of the like happened around here –you need to go to Cornwall, oh yes, they were all at it down that way”.

Funny I think, the Cornish were adamant that they didn’t do it either and just pointed the finger at the Scots. It seems no-one wants to own up to this particular piece of coastal history.

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